Fascial Release and Frozen Shoulder Release

Frozen shoulder is becoming more and more of a condition in our society. Another name for it is Adhesive Capsulitis as the sheet-like capsule that surrounds the joint shortens (unable to stretch, as it should with full shoulder range of motion) and restricts the ability for the shoulder to move. The most common lack of motion includes bringing the arm up the side, up in front of you and reaching across your body. It occurs as a secondary effect of poor biomechanics of the shoulder, occurring due to trauma, overuse, muscular imbalance, and very often occurs due to dysfunction of another segment or adjacent segment of the shoulder complex like the neck, midback, collar bone, shoulder blade. Very often when I feel for mobility of the shoulder or parts of the shoulder complex, I’m able to sense how long the shoulder has been stuck for just by how much flex is available in the joint and very often, it feels to me like the shoulder has been stuck from much longer than the symptoms have been present.

What can often happen over time is that we are so dominant with using our front shoulder musculature much more often than our back shoulder musculature, and that creates an imbalance (as you prefer equal strength between the front and the back shoulder musculature). The shoulder joint, called the Glenohumeral joint, is considered a joint similar to a ball and socket, like a trailer going on a trailer hitch, but because it is so mobile, the socket is quite shallow, and for that reason, the top of the arm bone (which is considered the ball of the “ball and socket joint” can translate forward a bit, pulled by the tighter front shoulder muscles. There is a little law with the soft tissues of the body called the Law of Adaptive Shortening. The dictates that if the Soft Tissue is put in a shortened position for a long period of time, then little cross bridges will develop between the different surfaces of the tissue and will not allow that tissue to stretch. This is similar to pouring glue on a Bungy Cord and seeing how the bungy cord can’t stretch. So imagine that we have stronger, shortened front shoulder tissue, like the front chest muscles call the Pectoralis muscles. They pull the top of the arm bone forward. This causes pinching of the shoulder and pain occurring at about half of the intended movement of the shoulder. So to avoid pain, you just stop moving the shoulder as much, when you do that, then the tissue become adhered, from the Law of Adaptive Shortening, and slowly all the tissues around the joint like muscles, tendons, ligaments and other connective tissue will shorten all through the entire shoulder complex (neck, upper back, shoulder blade, collar bone ect and all of their muscles, tendons, ligaments ect) will shorten up making the shoulder movement much less and subject to discomfort at the shoulder and at adjacent areas.

So the thing about releasing all these tissues and regaining mobility of the shoulder is that you have to think more globally than just where the pain is. Tissue restriction can occur down your arm, throughout the ribs, the shoulder blade can be stuck, the vertebrae of the back and neck can be limited in movement, the collar bone can be stuck, to name a few, in addition to the actual shoulder joint. The tissues that are holding all of these segments has become dehydrated and very tough so patience is required when gaining mobility and rehydrating the tissues. It is not about the pressure to release the tissues, its about the amount of time that you hold the stretch. Many times, it can be 5 minutes or more, of which, the first two minutes there is literally no movement, then slowly the “thawing” begins. This time spent, means the tissue release will be longer and will be better received by the body.
I’ve had some really really frozen shoulders, and it has seemed that it has responded really well with this form of treatment. Myofascial Release has really proven to be the more effective form of treatment for Frozen Shoulder.